Designing with Materials: A Hands-on Guide to Inventive Product Design

by Ellen Lupton

Materials are like words. The richer your design vocabulary, the more distinctive the design solutions you can express. Sketching ideas with a pencil or rendering them with computer software are useful experiences, but there is no substitute for confronting physical forms and materials directly. Exploring Materials is an action-oriented, accessible guide to design thinking that addresses both the "how" and "why" of product design. In place of the abstraction of pure forms or the whimsy of virtual objects, it encourages designers to make and test real objects in a studio environment. Best-selling author Ellen Lupton ( Thinking with Type ) and her colleague Inna Alesina examine materials from several points of view, including traditional uses, experimental uses, techniques and directions for prototyping with everyday objects, and environmental implications. Student exercises and inspiring examples from the world of contemporary product design show readers how to use materials as tools for thinking and making.

The book opens with two extensive one for a place for sitting and one for a method for carrying. By considering what is needed instead of what specific product can be made, designers examine the methodology of designing. The core of the book is a visual glossary of thirty-two materialsfrom corrugated cardboard to molded felt to plastic film. It highlights the materials' behaviors and propertieswhich suggest different types of structure, surface, and connectionand it shows experimental uses of these materials, demonstrating how designers from around the world have exploited their characteristics in inventive ways. The book concludes with a section on making it real, moving beyond the prototype to create a product that can be manufactured and marketed. Exploring Materials contains everything designers need not only to jump-start their design process, but also to follow a project through from idea to prototype to finished object.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2010

Reviews

[Yokusun Basi]

Exploring Materials: Creative Design for Everyday Objects by Inna Alesina (2010)

[Bill Mutch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exploring Materials: Creative Design For Everyday Objects by Inna Alesina and Ellen Lupton. Princton Architectural Press, NY. 2010. ISBN 978-1-56898-768-2. Two production oriented graphic designers have challenged their students to create all kinds of different useful designs using a wide spectrum of easily obtained materials, from corrugated cardboard to old coat hangers and egg cartons. They consider environmental pluses and minuses and introduce lay readers and do-it- yourselfers to lots of neat prototyping and fabricating techniques. The photography which illustrates the book is first rate, simple illustration. It conveys ideas clearly. Some of the designs are really, really cool. Well worth an evening to peruse. Tompkins County readers can find it next week in our local Library in Dewey 745.2 Alesina.

[Smellsofbikes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this a six... Visually beautiful, wide-ranging discussion of graphic/industrial/aestheti design, from the basics of how to work with felt and plastic to making art portfolios and filing design patents. Filled with useful information on practical ways to work with materials, like hints on how to glue colsed-cell foam or stitch stretch fabric. It's also *filled* with unorthodox design ideas, some of which are ludicrous, many of which are completely charming. (some are both.)
This is an invaluable guide to people doing commercial low-tech design.

[Jes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great reference for maker curriculum. So many of my program plans have been inspired by the basic design info in this book. Also, the design challenges are terribly helpful and really put how creative design works in general and more efficiently when you consider your materials as well.

[Jennifer Cheuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read this before I entered the industrial design world, so for me, it was a really good casual intro/easy read to the types of material out there. The abundance of pictures was a huge plus for me.

[Lisa Logan-roussell]

So excited to read this book by Irina Alesina and Ellen Lupton. Irina autographed my copy at Artscape 2011. Looking forward to using all the materials I have been collecting!

[Evgenia Pradel · Rating 3 out of 5]

inspiring